


Stay Gold

by captainxero



Category: Topp Dogg (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1950s, Alternate Universe - Greasers, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, but it deals with blood and smoking and basically crime mentions and sorta detailed injuries, idk what else to tag, so don't read this if that bothers you and be safe, sorta happy ending??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-16
Updated: 2015-04-16
Packaged: 2018-03-23 05:08:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3755572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainxero/pseuds/captainxero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Taeyang can't help but steal and fight and carry around that damned old switchblade. Yoonchul hates it, but he loves that fool anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay Gold

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, hi, more Jennakta but it's not really fluffy. Sorta happy ending, but it's mostly light angst. Anyway, this basically goes into blood, injuries, the use of weapons against people, crime, etc. so it could be triggering so don't read it if it's going to be triggering. I really hate triggering people so I try to make it really clear. Also this is based on the book The Outsiders, which is a great book, and I needed greaser Jenissi in my life, so here it is.

Yoonchul opened the door with a heavy sigh and found Taeyang standing there as usually. A cigarette dangled limply from between his lips and his fingers brushed along it, blood dripping from gashes in the skin onto his clothing, soaking them more and more with dark red liquid. His cheek was slashed open and bleeding, he had an obvious mark from a failed switchblade stab attempt between his eyebrows - it had a nasty reddish color like he'd scratched at his skin and then immediately burnt it with scalding water. His jacket was missing, his t-shirt was slashed and bloodied, and his scuffed blue jeans were no better.

Yoonchul didn't really remember a Saturday night when Taeyang didn't show up and explain his latest fight or dabbles in criminal things. Taeyang seemed to always be there on Saturday night, injured, but he always said he didn't run without a fight and the socials never won against him. And it was brutally true. Once Yoonchul had been with Taeyang when he'd wanted to jump a social, some wimpy kid named Byungjoo, and Taeyang pulled a switchblade on him just to scare him and ran off when the neighbors called the cops, caused some trouble in a bar, then got away with it all, and he was quite unhappy he couldn't add to his record of time in the slammer.

"Well?" Yoonchul questioned after he'd invited Taeyang in and as always, the small framed male hopped up on the kitchen counter and turned on the faucet, letting freezing water drip down onto his hands into the cuts. It dispersed the blood and the thick liquid ran down into the base of the white sink, and Yoonchul nearly knocked the cigarette out of his mouth because he was tired of cleaning blood out of the damn porcelain sink.  
Taeyang chuckled as he spit out the cigarette in the sink and laughed a bit harder as the water burnt out the flame and soaked the rolled paper, "Man, a social picked a fight with me down at the drug store. I took him out in the parking lot and we had a good little tussle. Pulled a switchblade on me but it's all good, I hit him over the head with a broken whiskey bottle."  
Yoonchul picked the cigarette out of the sink and threw it in the trashcan under the sink and switched off the faucet. His eyes lifted and crinkled, locking into a gaze with Taeyang's slightly bloodshot eyes, "Really? Can you like...go get soda pop without kicking someone's ass?"  
"Yeah, I could," Taeyang responded, shrugging as he turned the faucet back on and stuck his bloody hands back under them. His wrists and hands were chafed as well, from impact against the concrete, but he didn't care. Taeyang gazed at them for a while, "But it's more fun to look for trouble, you dig?"  
Yoonchul rolled his eyes and wet a paper towel. He almost dissolved it with all the water, but pulled it out and began softly rubbing it along the cut skin on Taeyang's face. As it still bleed, the paper towel was soaked up with the mop of red liquid and he tossed it in the sink after it was too dirty to use anymore. He brushed his finger over the mark between Taeyang's eyebrows and shook his head, "I might as well go buy you some soda pop and cigarettes and leave it here so you don't get put in jail again."  
"Hey, I don't have a problem with jail," Taeyang lifted his hand, laughing again at the exasperated look on Yoonchul's tired face, "You always come get me anyway. And it's not like they can do much to stop me, I'm not going around killing people, just ruffling their feathers and giving them a good knock in the head."  
Yoonchul grabbed Taeyang's shoulders and shook him slightly, glaring into his eyes, "Exactly. You're going out and hitting people, occasionally robbing drug stores, and that one time you stabbed that guy...oh, what's his name? The social, that Byungjoo's friend."  
"Yeah, yeah, Hansol."  
Yoonchul groaned and sunk his head against the counter, hitting his forehead against his arms. He might have been born into greaser territory, his brothers were delinquents, but he never looked for a fight or any trouble, he just got dragged into it.

"Alright, well, you...you go around with that switchblade of yours and do you," Yoonchul finally said. He looked up and began wetting another paper towel. Yoonchul clasped Taeyang's hands and winced at the weird feeling of the deep slices in his knuckles, giving a strange scarred feeling to his skin in certain places, "Lord have mercy."  
Taeyang winked playfully, "Well, it's you that always cleans me up."  
"No, no, I'm not even doing that. I'm making sure you don't bleed half to death, you delinquent," Yoonchul grumbled as he rubbed blood off Taeyang's hand, "Now if you mean actually clean up, you do that and you actually look quite nice if you clean up a little."  
Taeyang shook his head, closing his eyes as he chanted Yoonchul's name, "Yoonchul, Yoonchul, Yoonchul...what am I going to do with you?"

After Yoonchul had managed to clean off all the blood and stick some band-aids on him and get him in clean clothes with a shower, Taeyang stood on the back porch, propping his arm against the wooden beams of the fencing. Yoonchul stood beside him, eyes glued to the glittering stars, but occasionally he took little glances at Taeyang. He looked at him more on every other day, but sometimes he didn't like to see him on Saturday night. He preferred the Taeyang that liked drive in movies, way too oily popcorn, and that strangely good off brand chocolate sold at the service station down the block than the Taeyang that beat people up for fun, carried a switchblade, and enjoyed a night in the slammer.  
"You mad at me?"  
Yoonchul turned his head towards Taeyang and looked down, since he towered over him by nearly a foot, "No, I'm not mad."  
Taeyang frowned and slumped his head on his hand, "You don't never talk to me about much on Saturdays."  
"Ever," Yoonchul corrected, a teasing tone in his voice, although he was more serious than he let onto, and kept his face blank.  
Taeyang slapped his hand against the wood, a little splinter catching the edge of the gauze wrapped on his hand, "You don't ever talk to me about much on Saturdays."  
"Not much to say," Yoonchul sighed, "It's easier to talk to the Taeyang that's not a delinquent. I prefer the other Taeyang, the cuddly one that likes cats and chocolate and milkshakes."  
Taeyang was silent a while. He listened instead to the soft chirps of the crickets and rustling of the grass, and sometimes the occasional shouting match from the old couple next door. There wasn't much to listen to either. Taeyang finally replied as he picked at the frayed edge of the gauze, "Yeah, guess not."

He felt pretty damn sorry, like he was always letting Yoonchul down, and he probably did every time he opened his mouth. A lot of times Taeyang didn't realize how much he lied about saying he'd stop doing this and that, and well, now he was crestfallen. It was like everything was a lot more realistic to him about the fact he promised his boyfriend miscellany, but he didn't go through with it. He said he'd stop smoking - he didn't, he still smokes a pack or two a day. He said he wouldn't drink - well, he didn't like the taste anyway. He said he wouldn't get in another fight - he couldn't stray away.

"You're not mad?"  
Yoonchul's turn to be silent came, but he stared at the bruise on the side of Taeyang's face. It wasn't hard to miss, not even in the dark with no porchlights. He exhaled a little, and spit out his answer like it was the easiest thing he'd ever said, "I should be, but I'm not. I should be furious about the fact you're as pitiful as you are, but I'm not. I don't think I've ever been really mad at you, just disappointed, disgusted, and sometimes I pity you. You don't have anything better to do than stir up trouble, do you?"  
"I'm a sorry ass excuse for a human being, got it. You don't have to rub it in you're such a goody two shoes."  
Yoonchul gasped, "That's not -- "  
"Oh, hush, you damn fool. I don't want to hear it," Taeyang snapped and suddenly went back inside, slamming the screen door behind him.

Yoonchul immediately followed him back inside, but he didn't dash right after him. Inside the dark house, the only light on now was in the kitchen, and Taeyang was leaning over the counter, lighting another cigarette. Right in the house. But he didn't care anymore. Yoonchul had been asleep and woken up the smell of smoke at 2 in the morning because Taeyang lit a smoke in the bedroom.  
Taeyang glanced right over his shoulder and groaned. He let a puff of the thick smoke float out of his mouth and moved it away from his mouth, "What?"  
"Don't cut me off, you know that's not what I meant. You just wanted me to feel sorry for you because you feel bad," Yoonchul walked into the kitchen and slid the pack of cigarettes away from him onto the other side of the dirty cabinets. They weren't dirty until Taeyang got up there, but again, Yoonchul almost didn't care. Well, ok, he hated dirty cabinets.  
Taeyang sighed and took another breath of the cigarette and let it out, then cupped his hand over his mouth and coughed dryly for a moment. He shook his head, as if it'd clear his chest, and stared at Yoonchul, "Well, I know you're disappointed in me. I'm a shitty excuse for a human, and you don't make it no better."  
"Any."  
"Hush," Taeyang responded, swatting at the taller male's shoulder, "Point is, I know I'm disgusting. I smoke. I steal. I fight. I've got a record longer than that Sanggyun's hair, and you just keep telling me about how bad I am."  
Yoonchul clenched his jaw. He had to stop himself from whacking that idiot over the head, and instead kept calm and left another thing for him to get angry at, knowing him, "Because I want you to be the other Taeyang all time. You know, the nice, sweet one? That one is the one I like. Just because the one that gets in trouble and chain smokes like a freight train is cool, doesn't mean it's the best you there is. There's days you're sweet as sugar, and some days you're nasty, and I like the former."  
Taeyang sunk his head and held the cigarette idly. He let the smoke fizzle away and didn't watch it, nor put it back in his mouth to take another puff of the smoke. He deeply exhaled and spit on his hand. He crushed the burning part of the cigarette on the wet skin and crushed it, then rolled it up in his hand and held it tightly. He replied slowly, "I know. I'm sorry."  
Yoonchul reached out and brushed his fingers through Taeyang's hair, which had been greasy and oiled up before but now was soft and clumped in wet strands of dark hair, "Just clean yourself up and stay gold."  
"Huh?"  
"Stay gold," Yoonchul repeated himself, "You know, be yourself no matter what."  
Taeyang nodded and bit into his lip, "Yeah, ok."  
"Oh, don't throw yourself a pity party," Yoonchul laughed softly, patting Taeyang's hand, "Cheer up. You know I love you."  
Taeyang sighed again, "I love you..." He looked up, a little in despair and a little in reassurance Yoonchul wasn't going to smack him across the face, and he managed a quick twitch of his lips before he turned his head down again and stared at his feet dangling from the counters. And he wondered, again, why he didn't listen to Yoonchul when he was always right.


End file.
